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THE OLD SOUTH PILGRIMAGE 
TO NEWBURYPORT. 



By Edii'in D. Mead. 

I'rom the Editor's Table of the New I';n(;lani> Macjazink, July, 1900. 



0\' the Fourth of July, 1854, the 
city of Newburyport gave a 
great reception to her sons and 
daughters who were resident abroad. 
It was a famous festival, with return- 
ing sons and • daughters, reminis- 
cences and rhetoric and toasts ga- 
lore ; and among the toasts was the 
following: "The City of Boston — as 
we look around this dav. we involun- 
tarily ask, what would she have been 
without Newburyport?" How many 
sons the historic old town had in Bos- 
ton half a century ago we do not 
know. The speaker who responded 
to tlie toast of "New York" on that 
Fourth of July said that there were 
three hundred in that city. However 
it may be with sons and daugh- 
ters, we think that Boston has never 
in a single day sent down to New- 
buryport so many people interested 
in her history as will go there on the 
Old South Pilgrimage, on Saturday, 
June 23. For Newburyport has been 
chosen by the Old South Historical 
Society as the goal of its historical 
pilgrimage this year. 

It is the fifth annual pilgrimage to 
which the young people of this enthu- 
siastic society invite their friends. 
We have carefully noticed these pil- 
grimages year by year in these pages, 
because they are of interest to a wider 
circle than that of the young people 
of Boston. Young students of his- 
tory in a hundred places, to whom 
our pages go, share in these Old 
South pilgrimages in imagination ; 
and we have all these in view in writ- 
ing. The first Old South pilgrimage, 
in the summer of i8q6, was to old 
Rutland, Massachusetts, the "cradle 
of Ohio"; the pilgrimage in 1807 was 
to the homes and haunts of Whit- 



tier by the Alerrimac ; that of i8q8, 
to the King Philip country. Mount 
Hope, on Narragansett Bay ; and last 
year's pilgrimage was to Plymouth. 
Many hundred pilgrims, young and 
old, — for fathers and mothers and 
teachers go, have joined in these 
annual excursions ; and many hun- 
dred will go from Boston to old New- 
buryport on the June Saturday, to 
which the Old South young people 
look forward as one of their red- 
letter days. 

"There are three towns," say.s Dr. 
Hohnes in "Elsie V'enner," "lying in 
a line with each other, as you go 
■flown east,' each of them with a Port in its 
name, and each of them having a peculiar 
interest, which gives it individuality, in ad- 
dition to the Oriental character they have 
in common. I need not tell you that these 
towns are Newburyport. Portsmouth and 
Portland. The Oriental character they 
have in common exists in their large, 
square, palatial mansions, with sunny gar- 
dens round them. The two first have seen 
better days. . . . Each of them is of that 
intermediate size between a village and a 
city which any place has outgrown when 
the presence of a well-dressed stranger 
walking up and down the main street 
ceases to be a matter of public curiosity 
and private speculation, as frequently hap- 
pens, during the busier months of the year, 
in considerable commercial centres like 
Salem. They both have grand old recol- 
lections to fall back upon, — times when 
they looked forward to commercial great- 
ness, and when the portly gentlemen in 
cocked hats, who built their now decaying 
wharves and sent out their ships all over 
the world, dreamed that their fast growing 
port \vas to be the Tyre or the Carthage of 
the rich British colony. Great houses, like 
that once lived in by Lord Timothy Dex- 
ter, in Newburyport. remain as evidence of 
the fortunes amassed in these places of old. 
... It is not with any thought of pity or 
depreciation that we speak of them as in a 
certain sense decayed towns; they did not 



75470 



1^' ,,^" 2 



THE OLD SOUTH PILGRIMAGE TO NEW BURY PORT 



fulfil their early promise of expansion, but 
they remain incomparably the most interest- 
ing places of their size in any of the three 
northernmost New England states." 

Tlie beginnin^^ of that one of the 
three Ports with which our Old South 
pilgrims are concerned dates back 
almost as far as the beginning of 
]»oston. In the shi]) Mary and John, 
which sailed from the Thames to 
Massachusetts in 1634. came Rev. 
Thomas Parker, Rev. James Noyes 
and a large company of their friends. 
Most of them went to Agawam. now 
Ipswich, where thev remained until 
the spring of 1635, when thev re- 
moved together to a place on the 
river called by the Indians Ouasca- 
cunquen and now called Parker 
River. On May 6, 1635, the House 
of Deputies passed the followmg 
order: "Ouascacun(|uen is allowed 
by the court to be a plantation . . . 
and the name of said plantation shall 
be changed and shall hereafter be 
called Newberry." It was at New- 
bury in England that Rev. Thomas 
Parker had preached before he came 
to Massachusetts ; and the settlers 
thus honored their first pastor in 
naming their town. 

There were no roads throuirh the 
forest. The settlers came by water 
from Ipswich, in open boats, through 
Plum Island Sound, and u]) the 
Parker River, landing on the north 
shore of the river in a Httle cove 
about one hundred rods below the 
])resent bridge. Nicholas Noyes, the 
l)rother of Rev. Jsfmes Noyes, was 
the first person who leaped ashore. 
Mere on the Sabbath, under a majes- 
tic oak. Mr. Parker preached his first 
sermon ; and at the close of the ser- 
mon a church covenant was agreed 
upon. Mr. Parker was chosen 
j)astor; and James Noyes was 
chosen teacher. I'he two men were 
cousins. Cotton Mather, in the A/a"-- 
nalia, says of them: "Thev taught in 
one school (in England) : came over 
in one ship ; were pastor and teacher 
of one church; and Mr. Parker con- 
tinuing aKva\s in celibacx-, thev lived 



in one house till death separated them 
for a time." Their first residence in 
Newbury was at the Lower Green ; 
but on the removal of the meeting- 
house, in 1646, to the Upper (ireen, 
Mr. Noyes built a house on what is 
now known as Parker Street, and 
lived there until his death in 1656. 
Mr. Parker continued to live in the 
house with the widow and her chil- 
dren until his own death, in 1677, in 
the eighty-second year of his age. 
For many generations the Xoves 
family continued to reside here, the 
last occupant, Mary, Coffin Noyes, 
having died in 1895; and the house, 
the oldest in Newbury, still stands in 
good preservation. The two men 
who thus first ministered together 
to the Newbury church were both 
Oxford scholars and able theo- 
logians. The cathechism composed 
by Noyes for the use of the Newbury 
children is reprinted bv Cofifin in his 
history of Newbury. Parker early 
distinguished himself by writing two 
important Latin books, Dc Tradiic- 
tiouc Pcccatoris and Methodns Devinae 
Gratiae; and when old and blind, "the 
Homer of New England," he had a 
memorable controversv with Presi- 
dent Chauncy. 

The first meeting-house stoo<l 
on the Lower Green. Near it 
was the first graveyard. The 
earliest burials were not appropri- 
ately marked, and cannot now be 
identified. The oldest inscription 
that can be deciphered reads: "Here 
lyes y*^ body of William Dole aged 
58 years died Janry y^ 29th 1717-8." 
This William Dole was the son of 
Richard Dole, who came to Newburv 
from Bristol. England, in 1631), 
and who was the ancestor of Rev. 
Charles F. Dole, to whom our young 
people owe so much for his books on 
good citizenshi]), of Nathan Haskell 
Dole, the poet and critic, and i)f Gov- 
ernor Dole of Hawaii. 

I'rom Bristol also came in that same 
year John, Richard and Percival 
Lowell, the first of that great Lowell 
familv which for more than two cen- 



THE OLD SOUTH PHXIRIMAGE TO NElVBURVPOh'T 



3 



Inries lias played so distin.ijuishcd a 
part in New Eno:lan(l. Rev. John 
Lowell was the first pastor of the 
l^'irst Parish in Newburvport. His 
son was the eminent Jndg^e John 
Lowell, who in the convention that 
framed the Constitution of Massa- 
chusetts in 1780 secured the adop- 
tion of the clause which abolished 
slavery in the State. Judg'e Lowell 
was the father of Francis Cabot 
Lowell, for whom the citv of Lowell 
was named and who was the father of 
John Lowell who founded the Lowell 
Institute in l)Oston ; he was also the 
father of Charles Lowell, the eminent 
mitiister of the West Church in P)OS- 
ton and father of James Russell 
Lowell. The fine mansion whicli 
Judije Lowell built for himself on the 
liif^di Street in Newburvport. and 
which he sold to Patrick Tracy for 
£10,000 in 1778. when he removed 
to Boston, still stands. Here in 1782 
Mr. John Tracv entertained the 
Marquis de Chastellux and other 
distinguished Frenchmen. M. de 
Aiontcs(|uieu (a .^-randson of the au- 
thor of the "Spirit of the Laws"), the 
P.aron de Talleyrand (not to be con- 
founded with the distinguished Tal- 
leyrand) and M. de \'andreuil, — 
whose impressions of Newburvport 
at that time nia\- be found in the 
books. 

The Tracy family pla\ed a verv ini- 
])ortant part in Newburvnort in the 
last century. Its head was Patrick 
Tracy, who came to New En,q;lan(l 
from Ireland early in the eiij'hteenth 
centurv and ])ecame a wealthy mer- 
chant and shi]:)owner in Xewbury- 
])ort. Just before Patrick Tracy 
boug'ht the Lowell house for his 
son John, he built for his son Na- 
thaniel the fine mansion on State 
Street which, now transformed into 
the Public Library and housing;" ap- 
])roi)riately tlie Old Newburx- His- 
torical Society, has perhaps a "greater 
wealth of historical associations than 
any other buildinsj in Newburvport. 
Nathaniel Tracv, after sTfraduatiniX 
from Harvard Colleefe and takincT a 



supplementary course at Yale, bejj^an 
business at Xewburyi)ort in 1772, in 
partnership with Jonathan Jackson, 
who that same year married his 
sister, Hannah Tracv, and built for 
himself the house on Hijjli Street 
afterwards famous as the home of the 
eccentric Lord Timothv Dexter. 
Nathaniel Tracv's transactions were 
enormous, and his q'enerosity was un- 
stinted. Durine^ the Revolutionarv 
War he contributed over $160,000 
from his own private resources for 
the support of the g^overnment. He 
fitted out a great fleet of jjrivateers, 
the first of which sailed from New- 
buryport in August, 1775. He was 
the principal owner of 24 cruising 
ships, carrying 340 guns, and nav- 
igated by 2,800 men. Thev captured 
120 vessels, which, with their car- 
goes, were sold for nearly $4,000,- 
000; and with these prizes 2,225 
men were taken prisoners of war. 
louring the same period, Mr. Tracy 
was the i)rincipal owner of 1 10 mer- 
chant vessels, valued with their 
cargoes at nearl\- three million dol- 
lars. He owned several houses, in 
addition to the mansion on State 
Street. Among them was the old 
Craigie House in Cambridge, for- 
merly Washington's headquarters 
and afterwards the home oi Long- 
fellow, and the famous old stone 
hcjuse in Newburv known as the 
Pierce House. This house, built 
about 1670. before King Philip's 
War, long occupied bv ancestors of 
President Pierce, is one of the revered 
places in Newbury. "The great 
])orch of this old house," writes 
Harriet Prescott Spofiford (in a de- 
lightful article about Newburyport, in 
Harper's Ma;^a.-jinc for July, 1875), "'^ 
said to be the m<ist beautiful archi- 
tectural s])ecimen in this nart of the 
country, although it doul)tless owes 
l)art <^f its beaut \- to the mellow and 
\arie(l coloring which two hundred 
years have given it." To the old 
stone house the Old South voung 
folks will doubtless pilgrimage. Here 
.Vathaniel Tracv, broken-hearted and 



THE OLD SOUTH PILGRIMAGE TO NEIVBURYPORT. 



discouraged, his fortune lost, spent 
the last ten years of his life, and here 
he died in 1796. It is with the man- 
sion on State Street, however, whefe 
he lived so magnificently, that we 
chiefly associate him. Thomas Jef- 
ferson was his intimate friend and 
was his guest here for some time in 
1784, sailing with him from Boston 
for England in Mr. Tracy's ship 
Ceres. It was in this house, then in 
the hands of Hon. Jonathan Jacl>:son, 
that Washington was lodged during 
his visit to Newburyport in 1789; and 
the same apartments were occupied 
by Lafayette during his visit in 1824. 
Nathaniel Tracy's portrait hangs in 
the old building; and there too hang 
photographic copies of the old por- 
trait of Patrick Tracy and of the por- 
traits by Copley of Jonathan Jack- 
son and his wife, now owned bv the 
Jackson familv in Boston. 






"Ould Newbury" embraced within 
its limits the present towns of New- 
bury, Newburyport and West New- 
bury. It was one of the largest 
towns in the colony. The area of the 
township was nearly 3®,ooo acres. 
The extreme length of the town from 
the mouth of the Merrimac to the 
farthermost western boundarv was 
nearly thirteen miles, and the width 
at the broadest paft was six miles. 
The first settlement, as we have 
noticed, was at the Lower Green, on 
Parker River ; but the maritime vil- 
lage which in a few years sprang up 
at the mouth of the Merrimac rapidly 
outstripped the farming settlement. 
It was not, however, until 1764, just 
before the Stamp Act, that Newburv- 
port received a separate organiza- 
tion. West Newburv became an in- 
dependent town in 1819. 

The annals of old Newbury during 
its first century are like the annals of 
a hundred old New England towns. 
They are chiefly church annals ; but 
Indian alarms, militia, mills, farms, 
fishing, taverns, taxation, shipbuild- 
ing, Quakers, Baptists and witches 



play their part. The church in New- 
buryport seems to have been the 
most democratic in the whole colony, 
its members, while most respectful to 
their ministers, most jealous of any 
assumption of ofificial authority. 
Lechford in Boston in 1642 wrote: 
"Of late some churches are of opinion 
that any may be admitted to church 
fellowship that are not extremely ig- 
norant and scandalous, but this they 
are not very forward to practise 
except at Neivbury." This was the 
way the democracy looked to out- 
siders. It is edifying to read of its 
struggles in detail in Cofifin's history. 
In 1637 the town sent its contin- 
gent to the war against the Pequots 
— the little army pausing on its march 
to discuss whether it was living under 
a covenant of grace or a covenant of 
works. This was only two years after 
the founding of the town. Year by 
year the records give us glimpses of 
all sorts into the Newbury life — its 
nobilities and severities and triviali- 
ties. In 1639 Anthony Somerby was 
granted four acres of upland "for his 
encouragement to keepe schoole for 
one yeare." In 1653 the town "voted 
to pay £24 yearly to maintain a free 
school to be held at the meeting- 
house, the master to teach all chil- 
dren sent to him so soon as they have 
their letters and begin to read." 
"Tristram Coffyn's wife Dionis was 
presented for selling beer," at Cof- 
fyn's ordinary in Newbury, "for three- 
pence a quart." Having proved, 
"upon the testimonv of Samuel 
Moores, that she put six bushels of 
malt into the hogshead, she was dis- 
charged." It was a question of giv- 
ing strong enough beer for the 
money ; the law fixed the price at 
iwo-pence a quart, four bushels of 
malt to the hogshead. This was in 
1653, six years ,jfter Tristram 
CofTyn came to Newburyport from 
Haverhill, where and at Salis- 
bury he had lived since 1642, 
when, with his wife, mother, two sis- 
ters and five children, he came to 
Massachusetts from Devonshire. 



THE OLD SOUTH PILGRIMAGE TO XEWBLKYPORT. 



His Newburyport home was opposite 
Carr's Island, by the ferry. "He 
was a royaHst and was, so far as 
I can ascertain," writes liis descend- 
ant. Joshua Cofifin, the Newburyport 
antiquarian, to whose history we owe 
so much, "the only one of the early 
settlers of Newburv who came to 
America in consequence of the suc- 
cess of Oliver Cromwell." In 1659 
he went to Nantucket, where he pur- 
chased for himself and his associates 
many thousand acres of land, becom- 
in£^ the head of the gfreat Nantucket 
Cofifin family. His son, Tristram, 
was perhaps the builder of the fa- 
mous old Coffin house at Newbury- 
port, which dates from the middle of 
the seventeenth centurv and which 
has belonged to the Cof^n family, 
generation after generation, ever 
since. Perhaps the house was built 
by this Tristram's wife's first husband, 
and thus Tristram got his wife and 
the good house together. The Old 
Newbury Historical Society is at this 
time considering the making of this 
venerable house its headquarters. 
The first Newbury centennial was 
celebrated in its front yard, in 
1735 ; and in the old homestead, 
where he was born, in 1792. and 
where, in 1864. he died. Joshua Cof- 
fin prepared his historv of Newbur}-. 
One of the large elms on the place 
was planted by his father on the dav 
when he was born. In his early life 
he taught school in Haverhill and 
elsewhere, and one of his pupils was 
\\ hittier, whose well known lines. 
"To My Old Schoolmaster," are ad- 
dressed to him. The last words too 
of \\'hittier's letter written for the 
celebration of the two hundred and 
fiftieth anniA'ersary of the settlement 
of Newbury, in 1885, were these: 
"Let me, in closing, pay something 
of the debt T have owed from boy- 
hood, by expressing a sentiment in 
which I trust everv son of the ancient 
town will unite: Joshua Cofifin, his- 
torian of Newbury, te'acher, scholar 
and antiquarian, and one of the earli- 
est advocates of slave emancii~)ation: 



May his memory be kept green, to 
use the words of Judge Sewall, 'so 
long as Plum Island keeps its post 
and a sturgeon leaps in Merrimac 
River.' " The old South pilgrims 
will look on no house more venerable 
than the old Cofifin house; and they 
will remember that Charles Carleton 
Cofifin, who gave so many Old South 
lectures and wrote so many books 
for young Americans, was a descend- 
ant of old Tristram, whose wife, 
Dionis, sold good beer for three- 
pence a quart. 

One and another were fined for 
entertaining Quakers. Aquila Chase 
and his wife are presented and ad- 
monished for picking peas on the 
Sabbath day — the justice who ad- 
monished them not divining that 
their descendant far on, Salmon P. 
Chase, would be chief justice of the 
United States. "Nicholas Noyes's 
wife. Hugh March's wife and William 
Chandler's wife were each presented 
for wearing a silk hood and scarfe," 
but were discharged on proof that 
their husbands were worth £200 
each. Elizabeth Morse, the alleged 
"witch," was condemned to death by 
the Court of Assistants at Boston for 
her sinful behavior, "instigated by 
the Divil," but was saved by the firm- 
ness of Governor Bradstreet. Here 
IS an entry that gives a glimpse into 
the church life: "October 18. 1700: 
voted that a pew be built for the min- 
ister's wife by the pulpit stairs fin the 
new meeting-house], that Colonel 
Daniel Pierce shall have the first 
choice for a pew. and Major Thomas 
Noyes shall have the next choice, and 
that Colonel Daniel Pierce esquire 
and Tristram Cofifin esquire be im- 
powered to procure a bell of 400 
pounds' weight." In 1714 Rev. 
John Tufts published a tune-book, 
which was sold for sixpence. It was 
tlie first publication of the kind in 
New England, containing twenty- 
eight tunes. This at a time when four 
or five tunes — York, Hackney. St. 
]\Iary, Windsor and Martyrs — were 
the only tunes known in most places. 



THE OLD SOUTH FfLGRIMAGB TO NEW BURY PORT. 



was certainly an ambitious enter- 
prise. 

Before the Revolution Ncwbury- 
port had become a great shipbuilding- 
centre ; in 1772, ninety vessels were 
built here. But the Revolution and 
the drain of men for the Essex regi- 
ments checked the prosperity of the 
place. Newburyport became a sepa- 
rate town just in the exciting Stamp 
Act times ; and the Newburyport 
town meetings in the ten years before 
Lexington were almost as energetic 
as those in Boston. Newburyport 
made a bonfire of her British tea be- 
fore Boston pitched hers into the har- 
bor. The rector of St. Paul's Church, 
Rev. Edward Bass, afterwards first 
Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts, 
was occasionally hooted in the streets 
as a Tory. Rev. Jonathan Parsons, 
in the Old South Church, closed one 
of his sermons in the spring of 1775 
with an appeal to such of his hearers 
as were ready to enlist to step out into 
the broad aisle. Ezra Lunt was the 
first to come forward ; and before the 
meeting broke up there had been 
raised within the church the first vol- 
unteer company organized for service 
in the Continental army, which after- 
wards under Captain Lunt rendered 
good service at Bunker Hill. It was 
at Newburyport that the expedition 
for the capture of Quebec, under Ben- 
edict Arnold, in 1775, embarked on 
board ten transports, and set sail from 
the Merrimac for the Kennebec. The 
troops were quartered in the town for 
several days, and the ofificers, Arnold, 
Aaron Burr, Morgan, Dearborn and 
others, entertained by leading citi- 
zens. On Sunday the troops, with 
flags and drums, marched to the Old 
South Church to hear their chaplain 
preach. Of Newburyport's sufferings 
during the Revolution some idea 
may be gained from the fact that 
twenty-two vessels, carrying a thou- 
sand men, which left the town during 
those years, were never afterwards 
heard from, some perishing in storms 
and some in combat. The city's trade 
and commerce had hardlv revived 



after the Revolution when the em- 
l)argo in 1807 and the great fire of 
181 1 struck their crushing blows. 

We have spoken of Washington's 
visit to the town in 1789. He was es- 
corted by cavalry from Ipswich. 
When he reached the dividing line 
between Newbury and Newburyport, 
a halt was made and an ode of wel- 
come sung by a large chorus. In the 
town an address prepared by John 
Quincy Adams, then a student in the 
office of Theophilus Parsons, was de- 
livered, to which Washington re- 
plied ; and there were fireworks, a re- 
ception and great festivities. We 
have a description of the town 
at about this time, by President 
Dwight of Yale College, who visited 
it in T796. 

"The town." he wrote, "is buiU on a de- 
clivity of unrivalled beauty. The slope is 
easy and elegant; the soil rich; the streets, 
except one near the water, clean and sweet; 
and the verdure, wherever it is visible, ex- 
quisite. The streets are either parallel or 
right-angled to the river, the southern 
shore of which bends here towards the 
southeast. . . . There are few towns of 
equal l)eatUy in this country. The houses, 
taken collectively, make a better appear- 
ance than those of any other town in New 
England. Many of them are particularly 
handsome. Their appendages also are un- 
usually neat. Indeed, an air of wealth, 
taste and elegance is spread over this beau- 
tiful spot, with a cheerfulness and bril- 
liancy to which I know no rival." 

We get another interesting glimpse 
of the old town half a century farther 
on in Colonel Higginson's "Cheer- 
ful Yesterdays." Higginson, a young 
radical of twenty-four, became the 
minister of the First Religious Soci- 
ety at Newburyport in 1847, ^"^^ 
preached there for two years, quickly 
becoming active in the temperance 
agitation, the peace movement, the 
woman's rights movement, social re- 
form and antislavery. He writes in 
his reminiscences: 



"The parish, which at first welcomed me, 
counted among its strongest supporters a 
group of .retired sea-captains who had 
traded with Charleston and New Orleans, 



THE OLD SOUTH PILCKLMACli TO NTAl'IUKYPORT. 



and more tlian one of whom had found 
himseh' obHgcd, after saihng from a south- 
ern port, to put back in order to eject some 
runaway slave from his lower hold. All 
their prejudices ran in one direction, and 
their view of the case differed from that of 
Boston society only as a rope's end differs 
from a rapier. One of them, perhaps the 
(juietest, was the very Francis Todd who 
had caused the imprisonment of Garrison 
at Baltimore. It happened, besides, that 
the one political hero and favorite son of 
Newburyport, Caleb Gushing — for of Gar- 
rison himself they only felt ashamed — was 
at that moment fighting slavery's battles in 
the Mexican war. It now seems to me 
strange that, under all these circumstances, 
I held my place for two years and a half. 
Of course it cannot be claimed that I 
showed unvarying tact: indeed. I can now 
see that it was quite otherwise: but it was 
a case where tact counted for little; in fact. 
I think my sea-captains did not wholly 
dislike my plainness of speech, though they 
felt bound to discipline it: and moreover, 
the whole younger community was on my 
side. It did not help the matter that I let 
myself be nominated for Congress by the 
new 'Free Soil' party in 1848, and 
stumped the district, though in a hopeless 
minority. The nomination was Whittier's 
doing, partly to prevent that party from 
nominating him. . . . Having been, of 
course, defeated for Congress, as I had 
simply stood in a gap, I lived in Newbury- 
port for more than two years longer, after 
giving up my parish. This time was spent 
in writing for newspapers, teaching private 
classes in different studies, serving on the 
school committee and organizing public 
evening schools, then a great novelt}-. 
The place was, and is, a manufacturing 
town, and I had a large and intelligent 
class of factory girls, mostly American, 
who came to my house for reading and 
study once a week. In this w'ork I en- 
listed a set of young maidens of unusual 
abilit3\ several of whom were afterward 
well known to the world: Harriet Prescott. 
afterwards Mrs. Spofford: I>ouisa Stone, 
afterward Mrs. Hopkins (well known for 
her educational writings) ; Jane Andrews 
(author of "The Seven Little Sisters,' a 
book which has been translated into 
Chinese and Japanese): her sister Caroline, 
afterward Mrs. Rufus Leighton (author of 
"Life at Pup^et Sound'): and others not 
their inferiors, though their names were 
not to be found in print. I have never en- 
countered elsewhere so noteworthy a 
group of young women, and all that period 
of work is a delightful reminiscence. My 
youthful coadjutors had been trained in a 
remarkably good school, the Putnam Free 
School, kept by William H. Wells, a cele- 
brated teacher: and I had his hearty co- 
operation, and also that of Professor 



Alpheu> Crosby, <jne of the best sciiolars 
in New England, and then resident in 
Newburyport. With his aid I established a 
series of prizes for the best prose and 
poetry written by the young people of the 
town; and the first evidence given of the 
unusual talents of Harriet Prescott Spof- 
ford was in a very daring and original es- 
say on 'Hamlet,' written at si.xteen, and 
gaining the first prize. I had also to do 
with the courses of lectures and concerts, 
and superintended the annual Floral Pro- 
cessions which were then a pretty feature 
of the Fourth of July in Essex County. On 
the whole, perhaps, I was as acceptable a 
citizen of the town as could be reasonably 
expected of one who Iiad preached himself 
out of his pul])it." 



This was the Newburyport which 
Mary Hemenway, the founder of the 
Old South work, used to visit as a 
girl. She was Mary Tileston then. 
Her mother's family had Newbury- 
port roots : and her father, Thomas 
Tileston, was from Haverhill — a 
Merrimac Iviver man. In her youth 
she spent one happy winter in Nevv- 
l)uryport ; and to the last she had a 
warm affection for the old town. 

The first history of Newburyport 
was a little book by Caleb Gushing, 
"The History and Present State of 
the Town of Newburyport." pub- 
lished by its youthful author in 1826. 
In 1845 came "The History of New- 
bury. Newburyport and West New- 
bury." by Joshua Coffin, to which we 
have referred; and in 1854 "The His- 
tory of Newburyport,"by Mrs. E. Vale 
Smith. "( )uld Newbury," the charm- 
ing volume of historical and bio- 
graphical sketches, by John J. Currier, 
with its hundred and more pictures 
of all the interesting Newburyport 
places and persons, appeared in 1896. 
We have mentioned the article by 
Mrs, SpofTord in Harper's Magaciiic 
for July. 1875; and a fine illustrated 
article upon the historic old town bv 
Ethel Parton was published in the 
New England Mag.\ztne for Oc- 
tober. 1891. The Old South pilgrims 
therefore will have no lack of good 
reading about Newburyport. 

The Old South young people 
would be fortunate if thev could se- 



8 



THE OLD SOUTH PILGRIMAGE TO XEJVBURYPORT. 



cure the author of "Ould Newbury" 
as one of their speakers at the little 
celebration after their luncheon on 
the June Saturday. Interesting in- 
deed would be the talk in which he 
could indulge. He could tell of the 
graves of the famous fathers and 
mothers in the First Parish burying- 
ground in Newbury, in the Old Hill 
burying-ground. the New Hill bury- 
ing- ground and Oak Hill. He could 
recite a score of curious old epitaphs, 
like this upon Daniel Noyes at New- 
bury : 

"As you are, so was I. 
God did call and I did dy. 
Now children all. 
Whose name is Noj'es, 
Make Jesus Christ 
Your only choice." 

One descendant of one of the New- 
buryport children named Noyes is 
Mrs. William Dean Howells. As Mr. 
and Mrs. Howells are spending the 
summer at Annisquam, just across 
the bay from Newburyport, they 
should certainly be invited to join in 
the pilgrimage. The antiquarian 
could tell of poor Rebecca Raw- 
son, whose romantic tale Whittier 
has preserved for us in "Margaret 
Smith's Journal," who, betrayed by 
an adventurer pretending to be the 
nephew of Lord Chief Justice Hale, 
was swallowed up at last, in 1692, by 
an earthquake, in Jamaica — a fate 
more tragical than that of Agnes Sur- 
riage, with her Lisbon earthquake. 
He could tell of the sundry earth- 
quakes which seem forever to have 
been shaking Newburyport itself in 
those early days. He could tell how 
in 1695 a party of Indians fell upon 
the home of Francis Brown on Tur- 
key Hill, tomahawked a girl standing 
at the front door, and took nine 
women and children away captive. 
He could tell of the house, now stand- 
ing, at Turkey Hill, built in 1748 by 
Colonel Moses Little, who led four 
companies to Bunker Hill, and who 
was officer of the day when Wasliing- 
♦on took command of the armv at 



Cambridge. He could tell huw 
Colonel Moses Titcomb served under 
Pepperell at the siege of Louisburg 
in 1745; and how Nathaniel Knapp 
brought home from the second siege 
of Louisburg in 1759 the great cast- 
iron bomb-shell which now stands on 
the stone post at the street corner 
where he once lived. He could tell 
of the great congregation which 
thronged the old meeting-house in 
Market Square in 1755 to give Colonel 
Titcomb and his men its blessing as 
they marched for Crown Point ; and 
of Mr. Lowell's sermon from the text, 
"Moses, my servant, is dead," when, 
a few months later, the gallant 
Colonel's body was brought home. 
He could tell of the great feast be- 
side the meeting-house, with the 
broiled ox, when Quebec was cap- 
tured. He could tell of Captain 
Davenport and his Newburyport 
compan}^ on the Plains of Abraham 
when General Wolfe was killed ; and 
of the old Wolfe Tavern, which 
Davenport built just afterwards, with 
the portrait of Wolfe swinging as a 
sign from a lofty pole, — which tavern 
in the Stamp Act days became the 
great centre of sedition, a veritable 
Green Dragon Tavern for Newbury- 
port. He could tell how Benjamin 
Franklin visited the town in 1754. and 
studied the effects of the lightning 
which struck the steeple of the old 
meeting-house. He could tell how 
Paul Revere cast the great bell which 
until just now hung in the belfry of 
St. Paul's. He could tell of the" old 
farmhouse at Indian Hill, which Ben 
Perley Poore, who loved it so well, 
made a veritable historical museum. 
He could tell the history of the great 
elm on Parker Street, about which 
Hannah Gould wrote her loving 
verses. He could tell of the Wheel- 
wrights, — Abraham, the artilleryman 
and privateersman of the Revolu- 
tion, one of the last who wore in 
Newburyport knee-breeches and long 
stockings ; and the energetic William, 
who founded steamship lines and 
built railroads in South America, and 



THE OLD SOUTH PILGRIMAGE TO K EWBLRYTORT. 



wliose generous bequest now pays 
the expenses of Newburyport boys at 
the Institute of Technology. He 
could tell of Lord Timothy Dexter, 
who rated himself "the first in the 
East, the first in the West, and the 
greatest philosopher in the known 
world." of his book, 'Tickle for the 
Knowing Ones," and his grotesque 
home, with its wooden statues, on 
High Street. He could tell of Tris- 
tram Dalton, one of the first two 
senators elected to Congress from 
Massachusetts, — of his mansion house 
still standing on State Street, and his 
farm on Pipe Stave Hill. "I do not 
recollect any establishment in our 
country, ".wrote Samuel Breck, who 
visited him there in 1787, "that con- 
tained generally so many objects 
fitted to promote rational happiness. 
From the piazza or front part of his 
country house, the farms were so nu- 
merous and the villages so thickly 
planted that eighteen steeples were 
in view." A visiting Frenchman 
wrote: "He has fine apples, grapes 
and pears ; but he complains that 
children steal them, an offence readily 
pardoned in a free country." Mr. 
Breck observes rightly that "he was 
unluckily elected" to the Senate. 
"Home, that dear home where so 
much felicity had been enjoyed, was 
forsaken — temporarily, as they first 
supposed, but everlastingly, as it 
turned out." It is a melancholy 
story, — Eben F. Stone, the Newbury- 
port scholar, has told it best, — ending 
at last with the grave in St. Paul's 
churchyard. 

Pipe Stave Hill lingered pleasantly 
through life in the memory of Presi- 
dent Felton of Harvard, the great 
Greek scholar, who was a Newbury- 
port boy, and who at the Newbury- 
port celebration in 1854 said: "The 
old training field, where an ancestor 
of mine distinguished himself as 
sergeant in a militia company, was to 
me another Campus jNIartius ; the 
beautiful Merrimac flowed, in my im- 
agination, like the broad and bound- 
less Hellespont of Homer ; and Pipe 



Stave Hill rose like the (irecian 
Olympus to the sky." 

General Greely, who is now at the 
head of the Weather Bureau, and is 
therefore depended upon to give the 
Old South pilgrims a rare June day, 
is a native of Newburyport ; and on 
his return voyage, after his terrible 
Arctic sojourn, his ship first neared 
the coast ofif the mouth of the Mer- 
rimac, giving him for his first sight of 
his own country the outlines of his 
boyhood hills. 

Many indeed have been the famous 
lives which in one way or another 
have touched Newburyj)ort. The 
Old South pilgrims will think chiefly 
of old Samuel Sewall, George White- 
field. Theophilus Parsons. Caleb 
Gushing, William Lloyd Garrison, 
Whittier, James Parton and Harriet 
Prescott Spofiford. Mrs. Spofford 
still lives at the lovely home on Deer 
Island in the Merrimac, to which the 
old chain l^ridge, the first American 
suspension bridge, leads, ^^'hittier's 
loving sonnet to her husband, "R. S. 
S. at Deer Island on the Merrimac," 
will be remembered. James Parton's 
home was on High Street, and his 
grave is at Oak Hill. For nearly 
twenty years Parton lived in Newbury- 
port ; and the Old South young peo- 
ple will be glad to be reminded, at this 
centennial of Jeft'erson's election, that 
his first work in Newburyport was his 
Life of Jefiferson. which still remains 
the best popular life. 

On High Street too stands the old 
home of Caleb Gushing. Gushing 
was born in Salisbury in 1800, but the 
family removed to Newburyport in 
1802, and there, with the interrup- 
tions brought by his public life, he 
lived until his death in 1879. His 
public life was indeed varied and dra- 
matic. He represented Newburyport 
in the legislature, and he was her first 
mayor. He was four terms repre- 
sentative in Congress, was minister 
to China and minister to Spain. He 
organized and was the colonel of the 
only regiment that went from Massa- 
chusetts to the Mexican A\^ar. He 



10 THE OLD SOUTH PILGRIMAGE TO NEWBURYPORT. 



was a justice of the Supreme Judicial 
Court of Massachusetts, attorney gen- 
eral of the United States, and one of 
the American counsel before the 
Geneva tribunal. He was nominated 
by President Grant to be chief justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, but for political reasons was 
not confirmed. 

As famous a lawyer as Caleb Gush- 
ing in his day was Theophilus Par- 
sons; and his Newburyport house, 
dating from 1789, and therefore of 
just the same age as our national gov- 
ernment, also still stands in good 
preservation. No one did more than 
he to secure the adoption of the na- 
tional constitution by Massachusetts. 
There studied in his Newburyport law 
office, among others, Rufus King, 
Robert Treat Paine, son of the signer 
of the Declaration of Independence, 
and John Ouincy Adams. A satirical 
poem written by Adams at Newbury- 
port created some consternation 
among the young ladies there, whom 
under fictitious names it described. 
In 1806 Theophilus Parsons became 
chief justice of the Supreme Court of 
Massachusetts. 'His thoughts upon 
his deathbed were of his judicial 
duties ; and his last words were, "Gen- 
tlemen of the jury, the case is closed 
and in your hands." 

Henry Sewall, of Coventry, Eng- 
land, sent his son Henry to New Eng- 
land in 1634, and shortly after came 
himself. They were among the first 
settlers of Newbury. In 1646 the son 
married Jane Dumnier of Newbury, 
and soon after went to England. 
Samuel Sewall, their eldest son, was 
born there in 1652. He came to 
Newbury with his mother in 1661 — 
his father had returned before — and 
during his boyhood pursued his 
studies under the direction of the 
Rev. Thomas Parker, who resided in 
the Noyes house, just across the way 
from his own home. He graduated 
from Harvard College in 1671 ; and 
four or five years later was married 
by Governor Bradstreet to Hannah 
Hull, the daughter of John Hull, the 



master of the mint and coiner of the 
famous pine tree shillings. His life 
was chiefly lived in Boston, and his 
dust lies in the old Granary burying- 
ground. He was one of the judges 
of the special court for the trial of the 
"witches" — for whose condemnation 
he did public penance in the Old 
South Church; and in 1718 he be- 
came chief justice of the province. 
His famous Diary is a unique reflec- 
tion of the period. It shows in many 
places how lovingly he remembered 
Newburyport. He once expressed 
the opinion that the millennium would 
begin somewhere in the vicinity of 
Oldtown meeting-house. The Diary 
gives us the tender address which he 
delivered at the grave of his mother. 
The inscription on the stone that 
marks the grave of his father and 
mother in the old Newbury burying- 
ground was undoubtedly written by 
him. Pathos and humor jostle each 
other in Samuel Sewall's IDiary ; and 
the pilgrims will laugh at the follow- 
ing letter written to Rev. Timothy 
Woodbridge of Hartford in 1721, a 
year after the death of the great 
judge's second wife, — which takes us 
back to his Newbury school days: 

"I remember when I was going from 
school at Newbury, I have sometimes met 
your Sisters, Martha and Mary, at the end 
of Mrs. Noyes's Lane, coming from 
Schoole at Chandler's Lane, in their Hang- 
ing Sleeves: and have had the pleasure of 
Speaking with them: and I could find in 
my heart to speak with Mrs. Martha again, 
now I myself am reduc'd to my Hanging 
Sleeves. . . . To cherish me in my ad- 
vanced years (I was born March 28. 1652) 
Methinks I could venture to lay my Weary, 
head in her Lap, if it might be brought to 
pass upon Honest Conditions. You know 
your Sister's Age, and Disposition, and 
Circumstances, better than I doe. I should 
be glad of vour Advice in my Fluctuations. 
S. S." 

Hanging sleeves were over-sleeves 
worn by children ; the old judge is 
joking about his second childhood. 
What answer came to this letter we 
do not know. Evidently the suit did 
not prosper : for Samuel Sewall the 
next rear married the Widow Gibbs. 



THE OLD SOUTH mx: RIM AGE TO MlW'Bl'KYI'ORT. ii 



It is interestino- to note in this con- 
nection that the judg-e's sister, Annie 
Sewall, married WilHam Long-fellow, 
the first American ancestor of the 
great poet ; for the Longfellow fam- 
ily, too, had its roots in Xewlnu-v. and 
"Brother Longfellow" comes often 
into Samuel Sewall's Diary. 

In truth, we begin to think that al- 
most everybody has roots more or 
less deep in Newburyport. Edward 
Everett Hale, whom the Old South 
young people love and revere so 
deeply, and who is going with them 
on their pilgrimage, has roots there 
— his great-great-grandfather having 
been Samuel Hale of Newburyport. 
One Thomas Hale came to Newbury 
in 1637 or 1638. He had a son 
Thomas and a grandson Thomas. 
This third Thomas weighed five hun- 
dred pounds and had "a strong and 
sonorous voice that could be heard at 
a great distance." He was captain 
of the militia and justice of the peace, 
and "kept an ordinary and sold rum" ; 
but he was not the ancestor^ of Ed- 
ward Everett Hale. That ancestor 
came to Newburyport from Beverly ; 
l)ut his coming makes us think that 
the Beverly Hales and the Newbury- 
port family were related. Samuel 
Hale and Richard Hale were two of 
the hundred or more people who in 
1745 united to form the Presb}-terian 
(Old South) Church, under Rev. 
Jonathan Parsons. 

On Sunday morning, September 
30. 1770. George Whitefield died in 
Newburyport, at the residence of 
Rev. Jonathan Parsons, on School 
Street. It was just thirty years from 
the day (September 30. 1740) when he 
first preached in Newburyport, in the 
old meeting-house in Market Square, 
where Rev. John Lowell was then 
ministering. He preached there 
many times afterwards, always to 
great throngs. It is perhaps White- 
field's death and burial in Newbury- 
port that have made the town most 
famous round the world. If the Old 
South young people are led by their 
pilgrimage to new studies of the life 



and influence of this great man, they 
will receive at least one real inspira- 
tion. Perhaps no other man ever 
preached to such great multitudes or 
affected nndtitudes so deeply. His 
power touched England and America 
alike, and iMigland and .\mcrica alike 
mourned his loss. In London, be- 
fore thousands, John Wesley preached 
his funeral sermon ; and our young 
students will read the j)oetical tributes 
of Charles Wesley and of Cowper. 
Seven times he visited America. 
Samuel Adams and his sister as chil- 
dren heard him preach on Boston 
Connnon ; he died in the same year 
that Samuel Adams and the Boston 
town meeting gave the orders which 
sent the British regiments from their 
town to Castle William. "I would 
fain die preaching," Whitefield 
once said ; and practically he 
did. He arrived at Newbury- 
port, almost exhausted, late on 
Saturday, from Portsmouth and 
Exeter, where he had been preaching 
great sermons to great crowds. 
Neighbors and friends, eager to see 
him. thronged about the parsonage 
and, just as he had taken a candle and 
was retiring to his chamber, even 
pressed into the hall to hear him. 
He paused on the staircase, holding 
the candle above his head, and, al- 
though weak and ill, spoke on to 
tliem "until the candle burned away 
and went out in its socket." The 
next morning he was dead. On 
Tuesday his funeral was held in the 
Old South Church, which had been 
founded as a result of his preaching; 
and in a vault beneath the pulpit he 
was laid to rest. The Bible that he 
used in the church is carefully pre- 
served and still used on special oc- 
casions. The house in which he died 
still stands, next to the house where 
Garrison was born ; but it is now a 
tenement house and not the parson- 
age, and the l)road hall where the 
people gathered and the staircase 
from which Whitefield gave his last 
message are gone. 

As great an influence as White- 



12 THE OLD SOUTH PILGRIMAGE TO NEJl'BURYPORT. 



field's was to be exercised by the boy 
born under the shadow of the Old 
South Church in December. 1805. 
The young people will read anew of 
the poverty and struggles of young 
William Lloyd Garrison, of his faith- 
ful mother, of his brief days at the old 
Grammar School on the ^lall, of how 
he earned his board by helping Dea- 
con Bartlett, of how he led the "South 
End" boys against the "North End- 
ers," and how he swam across the 
river to Great Rock. He joined the 
choir of the Baptist church while yet 
a boy. The first psalm tune he ever 
learned was the 34th Psalm: 

"Through all the changing scenes of life, 
In trouble and in joy," 

which our pilgrims should sing as part 
of their programme ; and "Wicklow" 
he first heard at the singing-school in 
Belleville (part of Newburyport). 
"where there were lots of boys and 
pretty girls." To the end of his life 
he sang these tunes, with "Corona- 
tion," ""Hebron," "Ward." "Den- 
mark," "Lenox" and "Majesty," 
each Sunday morning. How by and 
by he got a chance to set type in the 
Herald office ; began soon to write 
communications to the paper ; and in 
1826 established a paper of his own, 
The Free Press, which he edited for a 
year, then leaving Newburyport for 
Boston, — these things the young folks 
know. He was a most skilful and 
accurate printer, and he celebrated 
tlie sixtieth anniversary of his appren- 
ticeship, in 1878, by visiting New- 
buryport and once more setting type 
in the office of the Herald. He put 
three of his own sonnets into type 
with amazing rapidity and without a 
single error. It is in The Free Press 
that we have his first words on slav- 
ery. He commends a poem which 
denounces slavery ; and in an editorial 
on the approaching "Fourth of July," 
with suggestions for the orators, he 
says: "There is one theme which 
should be dwelt upon, till our whole 
country is free from the curse — it is 

SL.WERY." 



"Our Country, Our Whole Coun- 
try, and Nothing but Our Country" 
was the motto chosen for The Free 
Press. The motto of the Liberator, 
founded five years later, was "C)ur 
Country is the World — Our Country- 
men are Mankind." That measured 
the young reformer's advance. It 
was a Newburyport friend, Isaac 
Knapp, who was associated with Gar- 
rison in foimding the Liberator. 
When the New England Antislavery 
Society was formed in 1832, three of 
the twelve who formed it were from 
Newburyport or Newbury. Whittier 
said that "the town must be regarded 
as the Alpha and Omega of antislav- 
ery agitation, beginning with its abo- ^ 
lition deacon and ending with Garri- 
son." Its abolition deacon was Ben- 
jamin Colman, who as early as 1780 
was in hot controversy on the sub- 
ject. It was gratifying to Garrison to 
know that John Lowell, author of the 
freedom clause in the Massachusetts 
Constitution, was born in Newbury- 
port ; and he might have remembered 
that Samuel Sewall in 1710 published 
a tract against slavery, entitled "The 
Selling of Joseph." "In 1716," the 
old judge says in his Diary, "I es- 
sayed to prevent negroes and Indians 
being rated with horses and cattle, 
but could not succeed." When the 
thick of the fight with slavery came, 
Garrison found church doors closed 
against him in Newburyport as well 
as elsewhere ; and some of his sharp 
invectives are against his native place. 
Yet in the midst of his persecutions 
by friends and foes alike, his love for 
his birthplace found expression in the 
followino- sonnet: 



'\N'helher a persecuted child of thine 
Thou deign to own, my lovely native 

place! 
In characters that time can not efface. 
Thy worth is graved tipon this heart of 

mine. 
Forsake me not in anger, nor repine 
That with this nation I am in disgrace: 
From ruthless bondage to redeem my 
race. 
And save my country, is my great design. 



THE OLD SOUTH PILGRIMAGE TO NEWBURYPORT. i? 



How niucli soe'er my conduct thou dost 
blame 
(For Hate and Calumny belie my 
course), 
Aly labors shall not sully thy fair fame; 
But they shall be to thee a fountain- 
source 
Of joyfulness hereafter — when my name 
Shall e'en from tyrants a high tribute 
force." 

The tribute from Newburyport 
came on the 22d of February, 1865, 
when, after the passao;e of the thir- 
teenth amendment, forever abohsh- 
ing slavery in the United States. Gar- 
rison, responding^ to the greeting' and 
invitation of his old townsmen, de- 
livered an address to an audience 
which packed the City Hall to over- 
flowing and received him with great 
enthusiasm. It was for this occasion 
that Whittier wrote his noble Eman- 
cipation Hymn. 

The most important episode of Gar- 
rison's editorial career in Newbury- 
port was his discovery of Whittier. 
One day he found under the door of 
his ofifice a poem entitled "The Exile's 
Departure," signed "W." Whittier's 
sister had sent it without her brother's 
knowledge. Great was the young 
poet's amazement when, working with 
his father by the roadside mending a 
stone wall, the Free Press containing 
his verses came into his hands. An- 
other poem followed ; and then the 
young editor drove out to East 
Haverhill to find his new contributor. 
The story is w^ell known ; and this 
was the beginning of Whittier's poet- 
ical career. 

Whittier's own associations with 
Newburyport were intimate. "Al- 
though i can hardly call myself a son 
of the ancient town," he wrote, "my 
grandmother, Sarah Greenleaf, of 
blessed memory, was its daugh- 
ter, and I may therefore claim to be 
its grandson. Its genial and learned 
historian. Joshua Coffin, was my first 
school-teacher, and all my life I have 
lived in sight of its green hills and in 
hearing of its Sabbath bells. ... Its 
history and legends are familiar to me. 
I seem to have known all its old wor- 



thies." He recalls proudly how "more 
than two centuries ago, when Major 
Pike, just across the river, stood up 
and denounced in open town meeting 
the law against freedom of conscience 
and worship, and was in consequence 
fined and outlawed, some of New- 
bury's best citizens stood bravely by 
him ;" and how "the Quakers 
whipped at Hampton on the one hand 
and at Salem on the other, went back 
and forth unmolested in Newbury." 
"Among the blessings which I would 
gratefully own," he wrote, "is the fact 
that my lot has been cast in the beau- 
tiful valley of the Merrimac. within 
sight of Newbury steeples. Plum 
Island, and Crane Neck and Pipe 
Stave hills." In the home of his 
cousin, Joseph Cartland. in Newbury- 
port, he spent many of his later days. 
A score of his poems touch Newbury- 
port ; and it is he who has transfig- 
ured the old town. Thomas Macy, 
in his memorable race from the 
sheriff and the priest, in "The Ex- 
iles," glided in his boat past Deer 
Island's rocks and Newbury's spire. 
In thinking of "The Swan Song of 
Parson Avery," we remember that 
"Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, 
with his wife and children eight," and 
that, after the wreck, "in the stricken 
church of Newbury the notes of 
prayer were read." "The Double- 
headed Snake of Newbury" is based 
on a tale which descends from Cotton 
Mather. In "Miriam" we have the 
beautiful picture of the view towards 
Newburyport and the ocean from 
Powow Hill, beside the poet's Ames- 
bury home. "The Bay of Seven 
Islands" is associated pleasantly with 
Harriet Prescott Spofford and her 
home "among Deer Island's imme- 
morial pines." and tells of the trag- 
ical fate which l)efell the brave young 
skipper who sailed from the Alerri- 
mac's mouth and never again came 
back. The "Tent on the Beach" was 
pitched on Salisbury beach toward 
the Hampton meadows. "The 
Hampton river winds through these 
meadows, and the reader may, if he 



14 THE OLD SOUTH PILGRIMAGE TO NEW BURY PORT. 



choose, imagine my tent pitched near 
its mouth, where also was the scene 
of the 'Wreck of Rivermouth.' The 
green bhif¥ to the northward is Great 
Boar's 'Head ; southward is the Merri- 
mac with Newburyport hfting its 
steeples above brown roofs and green 
trees on its banks." The reader will 
remember that at the close of "The 
Tent on the Beach," when the singer 
had sung "The harp at Natiu^e's ad- 
vent strung," and the traveller had 
said: "Allah il AllaUr 

"He paused, and !o! far, faint and slow. 
The bells in Newbury's steeples tolled 
The twelve dead hours." 

The little poem entitled "Our State" 
was written for the dedication of a 
new schoolhouse in Newbury ; and 
there could be no better hymn for the 
(^Id South pilgrims in their program 
than its last three verses. 

Nowhere else is the spirit of White- 
field, "whose memory hallows the an- 
cient town," so impressively revealed 
as in "The Preacher," greatest of the 
Newburyport poems, and one of the 
greatest of all of Whittier's poems: 

"Under the church of Federal Street, 
Under the tread of its Sabbath feet. 
Walled about by its basement stones, 
Lie the marvellous preacher's bones. 
No saintly honors to them are shown. 
No sign nor miracle have they known: 
But he who passes the ancient church 
Stops in the shade of its belfry-porch, 
And ponders the wonderful life of him 
Who lies at rest in that charnel dim. 
Long shall the traveller strain his eye 
From the railroad car, as it plunges by. 
And the vanishing town behind him 

search 
For the slender s])ire of the Whitefield 

Church; 
And feel for one moment the ghosts of 

trade. 
And fashion, and folly, and plesaure laid. 
By the thought of that life of pure intent. 
That voice of warning yet eloquent. 
Of one on the errands of angels sent." 

"The Prophecy of Saiuuel Sewall" 
will unite in the minds of the Old 
South pilgrims the Old South Meet- 



ing-house in Boston, in which the old 
judge did penance for his part in the 
witchcraft courts, and his boyhood 
home, to which they go on the June 
Saturday. It gives beautiful pictures 
of the Newbury hills and homes, and 
rhymes the famous prophecy which 
"the Judge of the old Theocracy" 
IM'onounced for Newbury. The Old 
South pilgrims will like to compare 
the poet's version with the judge's 
own words, as we have them in his 
"New Heaven upon a New Earth ;" 
and as they come away they will all 
pray that the grass may ever be green 
on ' the Newbury hills, the doves 
happy in the trees, and Christians 
plentiful in the homes. 

"As long as PhDU Island shall faithfully 
keep the commanded Post: Notwithstand- 
ing the hectoring words and hard Blows of 
the proud and boisterous Ocean; As long 
as any Salmon or Sturgeon shall swim in 
the streams of Merrimack : or any Perch, or 
Pickeril in Cram Pond : As long as the Sea 
Fowl shall know the Time of their coming 
and not neglect seasonably to visit the 
Places of their Acquaintance; As long as 
any Cattel shall be fed with the Grass 
growing in the Meadows, which do humbly 
bow themselves beforeTurkie Hill; As long 
as any Sheep shall walk upon Old Totvn 
Hills, and shall from thence look down 
upon the River Parker, and the fruitful 
Marshes lying beneath; As long as any free 
and harmless Doves shall find a white Oak 
or other Tree within the Township, to 
])erch. or feed, or build a careless Nest 
upon; and shall voluntarily present them- 
selves to perform the office of Gleaners 
after Barley- Harvest ; As long as Xafitre 
shall not grow Old and dote; but shall 
constantly remember to give the rows of 
Indian Corn their education, by Pairs; so 
long shall Christians be born there: and 
being first made meet, shall from thence be 
Translated to be made partakers of the In- 
heritance of the Saints in Light. Now. 
seeing the Inhabitants of S^ewhiiry. and of 
\'c7i' llngland. upon the due Observance of 
their Tenure, may expect that theii" Rich 
and gracious LORD will continue and 
confirm them in the Possession of these 
invaluable Privileges: Let us have grase, 
ivherchy ivc may serve God acceptably zvith 
Re-<rrence and godly Fear. For our Cod is a 
consnmiiii' Fire.^' 




Old South Leaflets. 



The Directors of the Old South Studies in History 
ask the attention of schools and of all students of Ameri- 
can history to the Old South Leaflets. These leaflets are 
reprints of important original papers, accompanied by 
useful historical and bibliographical notes. They are 
edited by Mr. Edwin D. Mead. They consist, on an 
average, of sixteen pages, and are sold at the low price of 

five cents a copy or four dollars per hundred, simply 
enough to cover the cost of publication. The Old South 
Work, founded by Mrs. Mary Hemenway and still sus. 
tained by provision of her will, is a work for the education of the people, and especially 
the education of our young people, in American history and politics; and its promoters 
believe that few things can contribute better to this end than the wide circulation o* 
such leaflets as these. The aim is to bring valuable historical documents, often not 
easily accessible, within easy reach of everybody. It is hoped that professors in our 
colleges and teachers everywhere will welcome them for use in their classes, and that 
they may meet the. needs of the societies of young men and women now being or- 
ganized in so many places for historical and political studies. There are at present 
one hundred leaflets in the series, and others will rapidly follow. The following are the 
titles of those now readv : — 



1. The Constitution ov the United 
States. 

2. The Articles ok CoNFEDERArioN. 

3. The Declaration of Independence. 

4. Washington's Farewell Address. 

5. Magna Charta. 

6. Vane's " Healing Question." 

7. Charter of Massachusetts ISay, 
1629. 

8. Fundamental Orders of Connect- 
icut, 1638. 

9. Franklin's PiJitf of Union, 1754. 

10. Washington's Inaugurals. 

11. Lincoln's Inaugurals and Eman- 
cipation Proclamation. 

12. The Federalist, Nos. i and 2. 

13. The Ordinance of 1787. 

14. The Constitution of Ohkj. 

15. Washington's Circular Letter to 
THE Governors of the States, 1783. 

16. Washington's Letter to Benjamin 
Harrison, 17S4. 

17. Verrazzano's Voyage. 

18. The S\viss Constitution. 

19. The Bill of Rights, 1689. 

20. Coronado's Letter to Mendoza, 
1540. 

21. Eliot's Narrative, 1670. 

22. Wheelock's Narrative, 1762. 

23. The Petition of Rights, 1628 

24. The Grand Remonstrance, 1641. 

25. The Scottish National Covenant, 
1638. 

26. The Agreement of the J'eopi.e, 
164S-9. 



27. The Instrument ok Government 

>6S3- 

28. Cromwell's First Speech, 1653. 

29. The Discovery of America, from 
THE Life of Columbus by his Son, Fer- 
dinand Columbus. 

30. Strabo's Introduction to Geog- 
raphy. 

31. The Voyages to Vinland, from 
the Saga of Eric the Red. 

32. Marco Polo's Account of Japan 
AND Java. 

33. Columbus's Letter to Gabriel 
Sanchez, describing the First Voyage 
AND Discovery. 

34. Amerigo Vespucci's Account ok 
his First Voyage. 

35. Cortes's Account of the City of 
Mexico. 

36. The Death of De Soto, from the 
"Narrative of a Gentleman of Elvas." 

37. Early Notices of the Voyages 
of the Cabots. 

38. Henry Lee's Funeral Oration on 
Washington. 

39. De Vaca's Account of his Journey 
to New Mexico, 1535. 

40. Manasseh Cutler's Description 
of Ohio, 1787. 

41. Washington's Journal of his Tour 
to the Ohio, 1770. 

42. Garfield's Address on the North- 
west Territory and the Western Re- 
serve. 

[Over] 



OLD SOUTH LEAFLETS. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




0014 077 750 ft 



43. George Rogers Clark's Account 
OF THE Capture of Vincennes, 1779. 

44. Jefferson's Life of Captain Meri- 
wether Lewis. 

45. Fremont's Account of his Ascent 
of Fremont's Peak. 

46. Father Marquette at Chicago, 

1673- 

47. Washington's Account of the 
Army at Cambridge, 1775. 

48. Bradford's Memoir of Elder 
Brewster. 

49. Bradford's First Dialogue. 

50. WiNTHROP's " Conclusions for the 
Plantation in New England." 

51. "New England's First Fruits," 
1643. 

52. John Eliot's "Indian Grammar 
Begun." 

53. John Cotton's " God's Promise to 
his Plantation." 

54. Letters of Roger Williams to 
Winthrop. 

55. Thomas Hooker's "Way of the 
Churches of New England." 

56. The Monroe Doctrine. 

57. The English Bible. 

58. Letters of Hooper to Bullinger. 

59. Sir John Eliot's "Apologie for 
Socrates." 

60. Ship-money Papers. 

61. Pym's Speech against Strafford. 

62. Cromwell's Second Speech. 

63. A Free Commonwealth, by John 
Milton. 

64. Sir Henry Vane's Defence, 1662. 

65. Washington's Addresses to the 
Churches. 

66. Winthrop's "Little Speech" on 
Liberty. 

67. The Bostonian Ebenezer, by Cot- 
ton Mather. 

68. The Destruction of the Tea, by 
Thomas Hutchinson. 

69. Description of the New Nether- 
lands, BY Adrian Van der Donck. 

70. Debate on the Suffrage in Con- 
gress. 

71. Columbus's Memorial to Ferdi- 
nand AND Isabella. 

72. The Dutch Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 



73. The Battle of Quebec. 

74. Hamilton's Report on the Coin- 
age. 

75. William Penn's Plan for the 
Peace of Europe. 

76. Washington's Words on a Na- 
tional University. 

77. Cotton Mather's Lives of Brad- 
ford and Winthrop. 

78. The First Number of the Liberator. 

79. Wendell Phillips's Eulogy of 
Garrison. 

80. Theodore Parker's Address on 
the Dangers from Slavery. 

81. Whittier's Account of the Anti- 
slavery Convention of 1833. 

82. Mrs. Stowe's Story of " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin." 

83. Sumner's Speech on the Crime 
against Kansas. 

84. The Words of John Brown. 

85. The First Lincoln and Douglas 
Debate. 

86. Washington's Capture of Boston. 

87. Morton's Manners and Customs 
OF the Indians, 1637. 

88. Hubbard's Beginning and End 
OF King Philip's War, 1677. 

89. Founding of St. Augustine, 1565. 
Menendez. 

90. Amerigo Vespucci's Account of 
HIS Third Voyage. 

91. Founding of Quebec, 1608. 

92. First Voyage to the Roanoke, 
1584. 

93. Settlement of Londonderry, N.H. 

94. Discovery of the Hudson River. 

95. Pastorius's Description of Penn- 
sylvania, 1700. 

96. AcRELius's Description of New 
Sweden. 

97. Lafayette in the American Rev- 
olution. 

98. Letters of Washington and La- 
fayette. 

99. Washington's Letters on the 
Constitution. 

100. Robert Browne's " Reformation 
without Tarrying for Any." 

101. The Introduction to Grotius's 
" Rights of War and Peace." 

102. Columbus's Account of Cuba. 



The leaflets are also furnished in bound volumes, each volume containing twenty ' 
five leaflets: vol. i., Nos. 1-25; vol. ii., 26-50; vol. iii., 51-75; vol. iv., 76-100. Pric^ 
per volume, $1.50. Title-pages with table of contents will be furnished to all pur- 
chasers of the leaflets who wish to bind them for themselves. 
Single Leaflets, 5 cents ; $4.00 per 100. 



DIRECTORS OF THE OLD SOUTH WORK, 
Old South Meeting-house, Boston, Mass. 



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Conservation Resources 
Lig-Free® Type I 



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nF CONGBESS 

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